Awarding Curiosity

I’ve started another one of my ‘home’ projects, attempting to chart some trends in awards winners for genre fiction. So far, I’m only about a quarter of the way through. You have no idea how much screen scraping is involved.

But, even at this early stage, I’m beginning to see some trends.

A basic description of what I’m doing will help in understanding the stats below. I’m looking at best book winners in awards for the following genres: children’s literature, mystery, horror, science fiction and fantasy. I’m only considering a subset of awards for each category, and I’m limiting them geographically to awards presented to authors writing in English in North America, the UK or Canada. I’m ignoring all categories that aren’t novel-length, or are awarded for first-time efforts.

You have no idea how many awards are presented in these genres annually. Even with those limits, I’ve already tracked over 15 awards. And I’m only a quarter of the way through.

It’s gonna take a while. Why go through this?

What I’m interested in is the overlap between genres. So, I’m looking for authors that successfully cross from one genre to the next, and books that win awards in multiple genres. I’m also interested in making a book that can be used as a starting point for children and parents that are moving from children’s literature to more advanced stuff, but want to stay ‘nerdy’. I’m not a librarian, though.

I’m hoping at some point to build this into an ePub book to distribute on the net.

It’s a big project. It will probably take a few months at least. But, hey, it’s better than sitting around watching Auction Hunters, right?

However, I’m beginning to see some ‘superstars’ emerge. Remember, the below stats are only for ‘best novel’ or ‘best book’ wins, only for a small set of awards, and I haven’t finished collating them yet. Take it with a grain of salt.

If you want to see all the awards I’ve tracked so far by author, you can take a look at this pdf of the current state of affairs.

Books that have won three awards

The Graveyard Book (Hugo Best Novel), (Newbery Medal), (Carnegie Medal)

Ahhh…the hat trick. So far, only Neil’s scored three times…twice! Which puts him only one hat trick away from tie-ing Darryl Sittler. What’s surprising about this accomplishment is that both books came out in the same decade.

I know a few of the books in the previous lists have also scored the triple-glory, but I’m only a quarter of the way through the sci-fi/fantasy awards. I know Neil won’t hold this ground uncontested for long.

The real issue is whether or not I’ll find a book that’s a four-time winner.